Five Highlights of the 2015 Job Market for B-School Grads

May 21, 2015
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Critical to making the decision to go to business school is trusting that a better, higher paying job will be waiting for you on the other side. Those receiving MBA and specialized business master’s degrees this month are largely seeing that their trust was not misplaced—the 2015 hiring market for business school grads looks very strong across all degree types.

Here are five key takeaways from our annual survey of corporate recruiters:

1. Hiring demand for MBA and specialized business master’s graduates is up around the world. Globally, 84 percent of employers plan to hire MBA graduates this year, compared with 74 percent that hired them in 2014. Of those with plans to hire, 59 percent plan to hire more MBAs than they did last year. The percentage of companies hiring MBAs is up in every world region—notably, 92 percent of US companies plan to hire MBAs in 2015 compared with 80 percent that did so last year.

The share of employers planning to hire specialized business master’s grads this year is also up compared with 2014 actual hiring. Specifically, more than half (51%) plan to hire Master in Management grads (vs. 41% that hired them in 2014), 46 percent plan to hire Master of Finance grads (vs. 32% in 2014), and 44 percent plan to hire Master of Accounting grads (vs. 31% in 2014).

2. The median starting salary for MBA grads in 2015 will nearly double that of bachelor’s grads at US-based companies. US-based companies are expected to offer recent MBA graduates a median starting salary of $100,000, compared with a median of $55,000 for bachelor’s grads. Globally, more than half of employers will increase starting salaries for recent MBA hires this year; 1 in 5 will do so above the rate of inflation.

Try our new interactive salary estimator tool to estimate how much you can earn after b-school by your desired industry and job level!

3. Internships are a highly effective way to land a job offer. MBA and specialized business master’s students do remarkably well turning internships into full-time employment. An incredible 85 percent of companies with MBA interns extended full-time job offers to them in 2014. Eighty-three percent of companies with non-MBA master-level business interns did the same. Globally, 67 percent of companies had MBA interns and 56 percent had non-MBA master-level business interns last year.

Watch video interviews with MBA students on the value of an internship in b-school.

4. Demand for new hires skilled in data analytics is high and growing rapidly. Globally, 51 percent of companies plan to hire for data analytics job functions in 2015—up from 44 percent last year. Data analytics is in high demand across industries, with the majority of employers in the energy and utilities (67%), technology (64%), nonprofit/government (59%), consulting (57%), and products and services (52%) sectors planning to fill data analytics positions this year.

5. The majority of companies worldwide categorize their direction as “expanding/growing”.

Companies in the US (74%), Asia-Pacific (62%), Europe (59%), and Latin America (53%) predominantly define their direction as expanding/growing. Globally, just 16 percent said they are “overcoming challenges”. Companies that classify themselves as growing are the most likely to be seeking recent b-school grads to hire.